Solar activity report: the sun is still in a funk

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has released their latest charts on solar activity and the news is not encouraging for solar watchers. Today, the sun has but a couple of anemic “sunspecks”.

Last month I wrote about how May had not continued the advances seen in March and April. Now according the the latest SWPC graphs of the three major metrics of solar activity, June appears to have slipped even further.

I see NASA’s Hathaway making another adjustment to his forecast soon. He wrote on July 1st:

The current prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24 gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 69 in June of 2013. We are currently over two and a half years into Cycle 24. Three consecutive months with average daily sunspot numbers above 40 has raised the predicted maximum above the 64.2 for the Cycle 14 maximum in 1907. The predicted size would make this the smallest sunspot cycle in over 100 years.

UPDATE: My friend in Perth, David Archibald, sends along this information.

Solar Update July 2011

Now that the UK Met Office is half way to admitting that solar activity is the main driver in climate, it is appropriate to check up on how the Sun is going.

Two and a half years after solar minimum, the Ap Index remains below the minima of previous solar cycles.

Dr Svalgaard provides a useful daily update on the F 10.7 flux at http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png What the above graph shows is the ramp up of Solar Cycle 24 F 10.7 flux relative to the previous five solar cycles, aligned on the month of minimum. The current cycle has a very flat trajectory.

Similar to the Ap Index, the Interplanetary Magnetic Field is now up to the levels of previous solar minima.

This chart compares the development of Solar Cycle 24 with the last de Vries cycle event – the Dalton Minimum. The Solar Cycle 24 ramp up in terms of sunspot number is tracking much the same as that of Solar Cycle 5 but about a year ahead of it. All solar activity indications are for a Dalton Minimum repeat. There has been no development that precludes that outcome.

This graph shows the sum of the north and south polar magnetic fields on the Sun. It has yet to get down to the levels of previous maxima, and solar maximum may be still two to three years off.

Bloke down the pub says:
July 9, 2011 at 10:57 am
At this rate, soon no-one will be able to ignore who much climate forcing is from the sun.
_____
Indeed, and this cuts both ways. IF we should go into a Maunder type minimum, what excuses will the AGW skeptics have if we don’t get their much talked about and anticipated new “LIttle Ice Age”, but rather, on a decade to decade basis, global temps continue to rise.

R. Gates says:
“IF we should go into a Maunder type minimum, what excuses will the AGW skeptics have if we don’t get their much talked about and anticipated new “LIttle Ice Age”
Not everyone here attributes a lot of forcing to solar cycles. Just because we don’t fully understand the dynamics of long term climate change doesn’t prove the increase in CO2 is now the dominant factor.

“Indeed, and this cuts both ways. IF we should go into a Maunder type minimum, what excuses will the AGW skeptics have if we don’t get their much talked about and anticipated new “LIttle Ice Age”, but rather, on a decade to decade basis, global temps continue to rise.”
A lot of sceptics will re-access the position in that scenario – including me. That said I changed my mind in 2007 as it became clear that the warming had stalled – I don’t see any real evidence of it accelerating again at the moment.
What about if we cool though – some of the warmists in that scenario ought to be criminally prosecuted due to the public money that would have been wasted.

To repeat what I said in the other solar minimum article. There has been only one Maunder Minimum since sunspot records were kept after the invention of the telescope. We cannot be 100% sure that this MM caused the little ice age. We have had two very cold winters here in UK, but let us not go down the route of the AGW brigade who tell us that every non-average weather event is caused by AGW. Climate is not the same as weather and trends need to be measured for much more than one decade to have any useful scientific value.
This is why I am so p****d off with successive UK governments destroying our economic competitivity by “carbon taxes” on power, fuel and transportation.

Didn’t anyone such as Landscheidt produce a graph from years ago to compare with Hathaway’s graphs ? Has Hathaway even heard of Landscheidt ?
It would be an interesting comparison if someone can produce a graph from the work done by Landscheidt and others many years ago.
Why haven’t Hathaway and others taken on board the work of Landscheidt and others. Perhaps once this is all over and they see how wrong they’ve been then they might start to move away from the co2 groupthink and return to real science, that is open minded science that embraces a wide range of other ideas and isn’t afraid to question received (conventional) wisdom.

R. Gates says:
July 9, 2011 at 11:09 am
No scientist has claimed that a Maunder Minimum necessarily causes a Little Ice Age. On the other side of the coin, what if five years down the road Hansen, Schmidt and the other Dwarves still have their heads in the computer and no new physical hypotheses that describe natural processes such as the effect of China’s aerosols on albedo (aka SnowWhite)?

D Caldwell says:
July 9, 2011 at 11:28 am
R. Gates says:
“IF we should go into a Maunder type minimum, what excuses will the AGW skeptics have if we don’t get their much talked about and anticipated new “LIttle Ice Age”
Not everyone here attributes a lot of forcing to solar cycles. Just because we don’t fully understand the dynamics of long term climate change doesn’t prove the increase in CO2 is now the dominant factor.
____
Fair enough, and of course, neither does WUWT represent the views of the entire AGW skeptical community, though I believe it has a fairly accurate sampling, and I’m especially impressed with the professional and self-taught scientists who sometimes frequent here.
But here’s the larger point: Global Climate models, while far from perfect, have accurately predicted some of the earliest effects of increased CO2, namely the decline of Arctic sea ice and general warming of the Arctic. Now AGW skeptics would love to say this has all happened before and show pictures of submarines coming up in open water at the N. Pole, etc., but any reasonably well-educated person who studies this issue in depth knows that the changes going on in the Arctic right now have not happened in at least 2,000 years, and probably much longer. GCM’s have shown this will occur based on CO2 and related positive feedbacks. To what do AGW skeptics ascribe it? It’s been happening now for far too many decades to be “natural variability”. And if it the Arctic does not recover, but continues to decline, despite a quiet Maunder Minimum sun, what will AGW skeptics continue to ascribe it too? GCM’s have shown it will occur based on CO2 increases, yet skeptics seem to be without an explanation other than “natural variability”. That excuse works for one or two years, or maybe up to a decade of out of the “normal” weather, but when it goes on 20, 30, or more years, and across multiple ups and downs of solar cycles, ENSO, PDO, NAO, etc. etc. that excuse fails.

To repeat what I said in the other solar minimum article. There has been only one Maunder Minimum since sunspot records were kept after the invention of the telescope. We cannot be 100% sure that this MM caused the little ice age.

Nor do we know if the Livingston and Penn fading sunspot/weakening magnetic field occurred during the Maunder Minimum. (BTW, I think history will record only one Maunder Minimum, I’m sure the Sun has had several “Maunder-like minima.” Sorry for the pedantry….)

Theo Goodwin says:
July 9, 2011 at 11:41 am
R. Gates says:
July 9, 2011 at 11:09 am
No scientist has claimed that a Maunder Minimum necessarily causes a Little Ice Age. On the other side of the coin, what if five years down the road Hansen, Schmidt and the other Dwarves still have their heads in the computer and no new physical hypotheses that describe natural processes such as the effect of China’s aerosols on albedo (aka SnowWhite)?
_____
Theo, not sure how much you know about the very complicated Global Climate models, but I’m sure you know that they are constantly being improved upon. Once a forcing dynamic is known and quantified, it is added to the model and as such, increases in aerosols are no different. In that regard, I highly anticipate some additions to the models to come in the next few years based on quantifiable effects of solar output in the areas of GCR’s/Cloud formation, high energy UV and global circulation, etc. These additions may make some minor differences in future climate scenarios but will not change the overall anticipated major trends such as an ice free summer Arctic, etc.
Of course, as they are modeling a non-linear system, the GCM’s will always miss the important tipping points, hence why the rapid decline of sea ice in 2007 was missed, and other future tipping points will also be.

R. Gates says:
July 9, 2011 at 11:47 am
Just because their models ,produce a graph that nearly mimics observed temps (not nearly really according to Lucia’s rather good analysis) doesn’t mean that CO² was the cause. It could mean that they had a bit of luck and that the graph was ‘forced’ well.

But here’s the larger point: Global Climate models, while far from perfect, have accurately predicted some of the earliest effects of increased CO2, namely the decline of Arctic sea ice and general warming of the Arctic
===============================================================
Let’s see………the climate computer games predicted temperatures would go up, and geee whizz they did. Right after the Little Ice Age.
They did not predict the missing hot spot in the tropics, they did not predict over a decade of temperatures not going up…..they did predict warmcold, wetdry, snowrain, droughtflood…
If you remember correctly, the earliest effects, they were hindcasting and retuning their computer games……to make them match what was really happening
If Arctic sea ice had increased, they would have retuned their climate computer games to show it.
You don’t need a computer to extend a trend, and so far that’s all we’ve paid for…………

….namely the decline of Arctic sea ice and general warming of the Arctic…To what do AGW sceptics ascribe it?
Mr. Gates,
We meet again. Certainly not to CO2, I shall write about it soon, but here is a primer (note warning at the top of the web page)http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CO2-dBz.htm

R. Gates says: July 9, 2011 at 11:47 am
[, ENSO, PDO, NAO, etc. etc]
Do you realize that all those things (and many others) except volcanoes are effects.
In the absence of energy from the Sun none of these effects [, ENSO, PDO, NAO, etc. etc] would occur.
In the absence of energy from the Sun the Earth would be about 3 Kelvin. It is about 288 Kelvin (cold + 285). One percent of 285 is 2.85, a small change in the energy output from the Sun may have a significant Effect on the Earth.
Many people think that 100% ‘normal’ output from the Sun yields an average Earth temperature of 15 degrees C, so 1% of the Suns output causes 0.15 degrees C, it’s not, and it is not that simple.
So the question is: How does the energy from the Sun, in all of its forms, and at different levels, cause these effects that affect the climate over the millennia.
Are there a ‘tipping-points’ in solar output that cause step changes in the above mentioned effects? I doubt that the relationships are liner all the way from 3 to 288 Kelvin, so where are the step changes.
We shall see is there is one close by, history indicates that there likely is.

Mr. Gates, three decades is not “too many.” Further, there is evidence that it was warmer in the arctic during the Medieval Warming Period, which occured less than 2000 years ago. And we know that 6-7000 years ago the arctic was ice-free and I hope you will not claim it wasn’t due to “natural variaility.”

stephen richards says:
July 9, 2011 at 12:09 pm
R. Gates says:
July 9, 2011 at 11:47 am
Just because their models ,produce a graph that nearly mimics observed temps (not nearly really according to Lucia’s rather good analysis) doesn’t mean that CO² was the cause. It could mean that they had a bit of luck and that the graph was ‘forced’ well.
_____
If multiple GCM’s, running vastly different simulations, but using the basic physics of CO2, happened to have the same bit of luck, I would encourage those model makers to head out to Las Vegas. Maybe, rather than luck, it is simply a case that it they are fundamentally correct, though poor on specifics, and horrible at seeing tipping points in this non-linear system of climate.

M.A.Vukcevic says:
July 9, 2011 at 12:26 pm
….namely the decline of Arctic sea ice and general warming of the Arctic…To what do AGW sceptics ascribe it?
Mr. Gates,
We meet again. Certainly not to CO2, I shall write about it soon, but here is a primer (note warning at the top of the web page)http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CO2-dBz.htm
____
Your ideas do at least intrigue me, and your pages do remain a great resource for general climate data.

“They [computer models] did not predict the missing hot spot in the tropics, they did not predict over a decade of temperatures not going up…..they did predict warmcold, wetdry, snowrain, droughtflood…”
Yes, but did they predict the manbearpig?

“Today, the sun has but a couple of anemic Sunspecks”.
OK just count them! all 65 of them??? SFI at 86. Does not justify half!
“I see NASA’s Hathaway making another adjustment to his forecast soon.”
Why ? counting like that,what can’t he correctly predict.

stephen richards says:
July 9, 2011 at 12:09 pm
R. Gates says:
July 9, 2011 at 11:47 am
Just because their models ,produce a graph that nearly mimics observed temps (not nearly really according to Lucia’s rather good analysis) doesn’t mean that CO² was the cause. It could mean that they had a bit of luck and that the graph was ‘forced’ well.
_____
The GCM’s are usually poor on details but excellent at trends, and of course, not useful for spotting tipping points. If the GCM’s say the Arctic will continue warming, and sea ice continue declining, what does it really matter if it an totally ice fee summer happens in 2080 or 2050 or 2030? Tipping points, natural variability, and currently unknown (and thus not included in the model) climate forcing are the limits to making the GCM’s even better. The first two things can’t ever be improved upon, but the last can.

R. Shearer says:
July 9, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Mr. Gates, three decades is not “too many.” Further, there is evidence that it was warmer in the arctic during the Medieval Warming Period, which occured less than 2000 years ago.
____
Please cite the research showing the Arctic was warmer during the MWP than now…I’d love to take a look at it.

Andrew 30:
I fully recognize that most of the energy on earth comes from the Sun, and that ocean cycles create no net warming, but merely are redistribution effects of energy already in the system. Over the long-term the ENSO cycle adds no net warming and no net cooling, etc. But also to be recognized is that CO2 fluctuates with the long-term global temperature cycle, which is ultimately driven by the Milankovitch cycles. But Milankovtich is only the trigger that sets in motion the full glacial advance/retreat cycle that we’ve seen during this current ice age. CO2 remains the thermostat that the Milankovitch switch initiates. If it weren’t such an excellent non-condensing greenhouse gas, it wouldn’t make such a great thermostat.

I still remember the comments on the WUWT solar posts from 2009: people debating, throwing all sorts of predictions around and describing various scenarios. Some even claimed that the picture would become much clearer in 1 or 2 years…
» to July 2011 and still the mysteries remain! It gets more and more interesting the longer we wait and observe.
I believe it’s really starting to look like we will be experiencing a grand solar minimum in our lifetime!

Cycle 24’s behavior is remarkably consistent, and it’s power is weak.
I compare that to the regional weather trends, which are likewise remarkably stuck in Lodi.
I do not see anything in either the Sun nor the Earth climate that says things are now changing.
The Sun struggles, as does the Earth’s climate to get out of its rut.

Billy Liar says:
July 9, 2011 at 1:31 pm
@R Gates
You seem to have changed from being 25% skeptic to simply taunting skeptics.
Have you been neglecting to wear your tinfoil hat?
______
Solar/GCR/cloud effects, UV stratospheric effects, solar-geomagnetic effects, etc. etc. etc.all remain quite interesting to me, but are currently unquantified. They are interesting and not to be completely discounted, hence I’m still a “skeptic”, but CO2 remains the best explanation for a large part of the warming we’ve seen over the later part of the 20th century, and which also made 2000-2009 the warmest decade on record.
Really don’t mean to “taunt” anyone, BTW

R Gates: “But here’s the larger point: Global Climate models, while far from perfect, have accurately predicted some of the earliest effects of increased CO2, namely the decline of Arctic sea ice and general warming of the Arctic. ”
And don’t forget falling sea level …. and more snow …

R. Shearer says:
July 9, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Mr. Gates, three decades is not “too many.” Further, there is evidence that it was warmer in the arctic during the Medieval Warming Period, which occured less than 2000 years ago. And we know that 6-7000 years ago the arctic was ice-free and I hope you will not claim it wasn’t due to
“natural variaility.”
==============================================================
These guys document it…….http://www.co2science.org/subject/m/summaries/mwparctic.php

R. Gates: “the changes going on in the Arctic right now have not happened in at least 2,000 years,”
So, what? There is evidence that the arctic was clear of ice in the summers about 6000 years ago. Something happening or not happening in the last 2000 years is not evidence for AGW. 2000 years is less than the blink of an eye in earth time.
R. Gates: “while far from perfect, have accurately predicted some of the earliest effects of increased CO2, namely the decline of Arctic sea ice and general warming of the Arctic.”
Wow, impressive. I could make that prediction at any time in the past history of the earth and I would be right 50% of the time. If I made it during one of the natural warming trends I could probably push that to 98%.
R. Gates: “It’s been happening now for far too many decades to be “natural variability”.”
Where do you get that idea. The earth has warmed for hundreds of years at a stretch in the past before changing directions. It has done this since the end of the last ice age; and during all that time, the ice was shrinking. Natural variability operates in short and long cycles. The GCMs are currently hanging on by their error bands. Another 5 years of the current flat trend and they will all be falsified.
R. Gates: “And if”
If ifs and buts were fruit and nuts.

Some theories posit that solar anomalies ultimately result in the earth’s northen jet stream taking nose dives southward, driving cold air masses from the polar region down into Europe and North America. Indeed, much of the cold weather where I am (Southern US) this past winter was courtesy of such diving jet streams.
So what air is drawn into the polar regions to replace the air driven southward? Seems like it would have to be warmer air masses.
Someone likened the cold winters to the door of a refrigerator (the polar regions) being left open, cooling the room (northern hemisphere). If you leave the door to a refrigerator open, it will cool a room down somewhat (assuming the heat from the refrigerator’s condensor isn’t pumped back in the room. But what happens to the temperatures inside the refrigerator?
It gets warmer. No CO2 involved.

Serious request.
Where can I get all of the sunspot forecast plots made by ISES? I want to create an animation of the prediction line falling as time progresses so I would like archive images from previous predictions. If I had thought of it, I would have saved them myself and will do so going forward.

R Gates
‘Please cite the research showing the Arctic was warmer during the MWP than now…I’d love to take a look at it.’
There is enough historical evidence to suggest that the Arctic was at least as warm during the MWP as today. There are also heaps of studies to suggest this – one at:http://co2science.org/articles/V10/N4/C3.php

Billy: His job is probably to keep refuting for the AGW establishment. I would not be surprise that there is a concerted effort by the system to seed all the skeptical sites with “supposed experts” as they have realized that it has become the number one threat to the scam. LOL

I see Mr. Gates has pirated another thread off to the land of models.
Q: where does a GCM pirate go for confirmation?
A: The Argh-ctic.
Q: why not the Antarctic?
A: The Antarctic, she don’t fit so well.
Next time take me to Havana. Please.
I thought we were talking about solar cycles.

R. Gates says:
July 9, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Andrew 30:
“CO2 remains the thermostat that the Milankovitch switch initiates.”
And, because humans have emitted a puff of CO2 in a CO2-starved era, this time things will be different?

R. Gates,
With the world’s population being what it is, we all better pray we don’t have another little ice age! Especially since the idiots in the government are doing their utmost to destroy our electric generating capacity.

R.Gates,
chew on this one for a while. Enjoy.
The Met Office, eyes wide open
Posted on July 9, 2011 by Anthony Watts
History of sunspot number observations showing…
There’s an extraordinary admission about solar activity and cold winters in the UK from the Met Office in an article in FT Magazine.
It is as if the blinders have been removed.
The relevant passage is below from the much larger article.
“We now believe that [the solar cycle] accounts for 50 per cent of the variability from year to year,” says Scaife. With solar physicists predicting a long-term reduction in the intensity of the solar cycle – and possibly its complete disappearance for a few decades, as happened during the so-called Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1715 – this could be an ominous signal for icy winters ahead, despite global warming.

” Further, there is evidence that it was warmer in the arctic during the Medieval Warming Period, which occured less than 2000 years ago. ”
No !:
Recent melt rates of Canadian Arctic ice caps are the highest in four millennia – Fisher et al. (2011)http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092181811100097X
“There has been a rapid acceleration in ice-cap melt rates over the last few decades across the entire Canadian Arctic. Present melt rates exceed the past rates for many millennia. New shallow cores at old sites bring their melt series up-to-date. The melt-percentage series from the Devon Island and Agassiz (Ellesmere Island) ice caps are well correlated with the Devon net mass balance and show a large increase in melt since the middle 1990s. Arctic ice core melt series (latitude range of 67 to 81 N) show the last quarter century has seen the highest melt in two millennia and The Holocene-long Agassiz melt record shows the last 25 years has the highest melt in 4200 years. The Agassiz melt rates since the middle 1990s resemble those of the early Holocene thermal maximum over 9000 years ago.”
—————
A millennial perspective on Arctic warming from 14C in quartz and plants emerging from beneath ice caps – Anderson et al. (2008)http://www.glyfac.buffalo.edu/Faculty/briner/buf/pubs/Anderson_et_al_2008.pdf
“Observational records show that the area of ice caps on northern Baffin Island, Arctic Canada has diminished by more than 50% since 1958. Fifty 14C dates on dead vegetation emerging beneath receding ice margins document the persistence of some of these ice caps since at least 350 AD.[…] The rapid disappearance of these ice caps over the past century, despite decreasing summer insolation, further demonstrates the unusual character of 20th Century warmth.”
————
A millennial-scale record of Arctic Ocean sea ice variability and the demise of the Ellesmere Island ice shelves – England et al. (2008)http://dro.dur.ac.uk/6877/1/6877.pdf
“[…] Removal of the remaining ice shelves would be unprecedented in the last 5500 years. This
highlights the impact of ongoing 20th and 21st century climate warming that continues to break up the remaining ice shelves and soon may cause historically ice-filled fiords nearby to open seasonally.”
———–
Examining Arctic Ice Shelves Prior to the 2008 Breakup – Mueller et al (2008)http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008EO490002.shtml
“This past summer, Ellesmere’s 50-square-kilometer Markham Ice Shelf also broke away, and there was major fracturing throughout the eastern half and well into the western half of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, which is the largest remaining ice shelf in the Northern Hemisphere. Together, all of the Canadian ice shelves lost a total of 23% of their area during summer 2008, leaving only 720 square kilometers behind. Some fjords along northern Ellesmere Island are now ice free for the first time in 3000–5500 years”

“Please cite the research showing the Arctic was warmer during the MWP than now…I’d love to take a look at it.”
I love the “evidence” people pull up to “prove” this. the same yokels who dont believe todays thermometers lap up the MWP bathwater.
Here’s a clue gents.
1. it may well have been warmer in the MWP
2. That means the climate is MORE sensitive than we currently think.
The fact that it may or may not have been warmer in the past, does not change radiative physics.
More C02 means more warming. More methane means more warming. More Sun means more warming. each of these forcings has an impact on different time scales with different time lags.
The question is what PORTION of the warming is due to each forcing. C02 (according to the consensus) is less than 50% of all forcings. And, if the MWP was warmer, with less C02, then
you’ve got a more sensitive climate. It makes for a worse future.
How’s that Ice at 5.5Mkm looking as a prediction gents?

jtom says:
July 9, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Someone likened the cold winters to the door of a refrigerator (the polar regions) being left open, cooling the room (northern hemisphere). If you leave the door to a refrigerator open, it will cool a room down somewhat (assuming the heat from the refrigerator’s condensor isn’t pumped back in the room. But what happens to the temperatures inside the refrigerator?
It gets warmer. No CO2 involved.
Agree except for the “it gets warmer” part. With the sun out of the picture during the Polar Winter, the heat in the refrigerator is just like the leaking O2 aboard Apollo 13….it escapes to space. We certainly have extended winters and springs as collateral data, as well as cold fronts getting much further towards the equator. The next step is to be able to establish proof that the Sun is responsible.

steven mosher says:July 9, 2011 at 3:34 pm
“Please cite the research showing the Arctic was warmer during the MWP than now…I’d love to take a look at it.”
I love the “evidence” people pull up to “prove” this. the same yokels who dont believe todays thermometers lap up the MWP bathwater.
Here’s a clue gents.
1. it may well have been warmer in the MWP
2. That means the climate is MORE sensitive than we currently think.
An alternative to number two would be the normal variation is more than what is acknowledged.

R. Gates says: “…But here’s the larger point: Global Climate models, while far from perfect, have accurately predicted some of the earliest effects of increased CO2, namely the decline of Arctic sea ice and general warming of the Arctic.”
Just for comparison, how did they do in the Antarctic?

“And, if the MWP was warmer, with less C02, then
you’ve got a more sensitive climate. It makes for a worse future.”
====================================================
Since the MWP was as warm or warmer than now….
Followed immediately by the LIA – Little Ice Age
Which was obviously a whole lot colder, and the main reason for temps rising now………
If CO2 does 1/2 of what you think it does…..
….that means a better future

steven mosher says:
July 9, 2011 at 3:34 pm
“Please cite the research showing the Arctic was warmer during the MWP than now…I’d love to take a look at it.”…
“I love the “evidence” people pull up to “prove” this. the same yokels who dont believe todays thermometers lap up the MWP bathwater.
C02 (according to the consensus) is less than 50% of all forcings. And, if the MWP was warmer, with less C02, then you’ve got a more sensitive climate. It makes for a worse future.”
———-
????? I find no logical consistency in your argument. If the climate were so sensitive to CO2 as you claim, would we not be much warmer now than in the Medieval Warm Period, no matter what the sun was doing? What has this to do with the so-called consensus that CO2 is responsible for less than 50% of all forcings? Since the warming in the MWP has not been explained, there is nothing to say that our current warming is not due to exactly the same factors, and that CO2 plays a miniscule role at best. “Sensitive climate” refers to CO2 sensitivity, for which I have seen no compelling demonstration from the scientific community. Where is the evidence that our supposed warming is worse than ever before (which is the warmist argument)?
I know R.Gates would like us to dig up the thermostatic scientific records from the WMP, to finally convince him. Of course, the thermometer lay 400 or more years in the future. I accuse him of ‘scientism’ which privileges scientifically-derived knowledge above all other forms. Surely the historical evidence must give some pause to the alarmists – records of Norse farming and semi-successful settlements in Greenland etc.. On top of this, modern archaeology (or simple observation) is discovering new northerly sites revealing human activity previously covered in glaciers or snow. I would like to see the warmist explanation for these phenomena, to justify the contention that it was not warmer in the past. It’s in your court, Steve Mosher and R. Gates.

steven mosher says:
July 9, 2011 at 3:34 pm
In the heights of the Interglacial, warmer Polar regions and cooler Temperate regions would be a temporary thing, swinging up & down by means of thier causation being cyclic.
As one headed down from the Interglacial, the relatively ‘melted’ Polar regions would cease to be, as the Earth’s reservoir of oceanic heat would be drawn down past the point of being a factor.
I take no comfort in the Polar regions getting warmer when it means the Temperate region I inhabit gets colder.
IF… there is a 2nd (and much warmer) bump in this Interglacial, as was the case 400,000 to 412,000 yrs ago, I won’t be around to enjoy it.

“Here’s a clue gents.
1. it may well have been warmer in the MWP
2. That means the climate is MORE sensitive than we currently think”
This nonsense does not die.
How warm it was in the MWP, has nothing to do with “climate sensitivity”.

steven mosher says:
July 9, 2011 at 3:34 pm
“How’s that Ice at 5.5Mkm looking as a prediction gents?”
========
OK,
right, wrong or in between, the Sun is headed into a minimum.
In the mean time we sacrifice rare-earth metals, and silicon to appease Gaia ,
in the hope it will change the climate ?
Where has reason gone ?

steven mosher says:
July 9, 2011 at 3:34 pm
“1. it may well have been warmer in the MWP
2. That means the climate is MORE sensitive than we currently think.
The fact that it may or may not have been warmer in the past, does not change radiative physics.”
Apart from 2. have no disagreement, but in fact this actually means it is LESS sensitive than you currently think. Lets assume that CO2 during the MWP were 270 ppm from ice cores, that is 124 ppm lower than current levels. So with 124 ppm lower levels the period may even have been warmer. That means the increases in CO2 of 124 ppm have contributed no noticeable difference without changing radiative physics. Hence, that means the climate is LESS sensitive than we currently think at least from CO2. While the swings in temperatures in ice cores during interglaciers are nothing compared to glacier periods with much lower levels of CO2.

RGates,
Let me explain something to you, when you have a computer model, you have a bunch of variables that you fine-tune. This process is done with training data, or known data as in the case of GCM’s which rely on our temperature data. You can attribute ANYTHING to changes in the temperature, but there is no evidence that the forcings that are there for CO2 are correct or any other gas or substance for that matter. You see, you can test and find actual forcings, and you can also just guess. Granted, we might understand CO2 better then other variables, but if we are wrong on one variable by even a little, it makes every GCM out there worthless because they are depended on X value for that variable and without that forcing, their models are garbage. This is why extrapolation is so difficult in modeling. Even one variable being off by 1% can result in the model being garbage. You can not tell me that the models are correct to within the required parameters to predict even arctic warming…..that is just a coincidence.
First mistake as I see it …. using aerosols as the “negative forcing” and just bluntly force this into the model. Its not scientific to explain away data mismatches from theory on one variable that could possibly explain it. It does not make models correct, it just means that you can train data, which I would hate to tell you, but you can train a monkey to do that part. And now the thought that coal from China is causing us to cool is not shown by the data either. GCM’s are great at inventing stories as you can see, but data shows the truth in the end that these models all along have been wrong in reference to aerosols. We have known this since roughly 2001.
Now complete correctness, that is something else. Since all the GCM’s base their assumptions on similar equations and beliefs so to speak, I put little faith in them in predicting the future. Even for solar as in this article, if our understanding of solar is off by 1% or even less, this has drastic results on the variables that were trained (unknown). Just because all the scientists train their data and their unknown variables slightly differently and come up with different models based on the same assumptions, this tells us nothing…..
Its all the way back to the principle of exclusion which is the main problem with CAGW. CO2 does have a warming property and overall it might warm the planet, but the models are not getting even close. Theoritically, they pass the test of being “plausible” but this does not make them any better at predicting future climate then looking at your grocery list and bill over time as well and comparing it to climate. You can not extrapolate wrong data and say, see this means its correct if you then turn around and ignore data which is not predicted by those same models. That is not science, that is just abusing statistics inside of data models which are inherently worthless since the assumptions are nothing more then guesses which are based on: “We do not know what is causing the warming, so it must be CO2.” That is not correct per se. Plausable? Maybe, but not proof that we are warming due to the A in AGW.
Maybe the null hypothesis that most of the warming is natural should still apply as in the case of the scientific method? Not sure why it does not apply in climate change, but shrug.

Those wishing the ice to melt in the Arctic to prove their precious CO2 global warming need to go further back to pre-history. Human habitation in the last ice age that has recently come to light with a melting of some previous ice covered areas, would tend to suggest that the arctic in an ice age is relatively benign. The nasty bit of the ice age is further south. Thus wishing the ice to melt in the Arctic is a fools errand that may be a precursor to our next cold spell.

Let me explain something to you, when you have a computer model, you have a bunch of variables that you fine-tune. This process is done with training data, or known data as in the case of GCM’s which rely on our temperature data.

All of The GCMs are not trained on temperature data.
1. If they were they would match the record far better than they do. AND match each other
better than they do.
2. There are typically a couple a parameters that are set. NONE has to
do with temperature. For example, in the case of one GCM
I’m familar with, a relative humidity parameter is set so that the
radiation at TOA is correct. Basically has to do with low cloud formation.
here…
“Once the components are coupled, then the only parameter settings that are usually allowed to change are the sea ice albedos and a single parameter in the atmosphere component. This is the relative humidity threshold above which low clouds are formed, and it is used to balance the coupled model at the TOA. A few 100 year coupled runs are required to find the best values for these parameters based on the Arctic sea ice thickness and a good TOA heat balance. ”
Its false that all the models are trained to the temperature series. IF YOU EVER LOOKED at the ACTUAL temperature series from the models, you’d see why this is NOT the case. i’ll leave that exercise to you. the data is out there. its NOT what you think or what you’ve read on the blogs.

We can not control the SUN. We can only observe then report the data. We can try to analysis this data to develop a theory of what is happening and what might occur in the furture. But what that data is telling us, is the sun is in a FUNK. I love it.

This nonsense does not die.
How warm it was in the MWP, has nothing to do with “climate sensitivity”.

Actually it does. there are three sources for estimating sensitivity
NOTE: This doesnt have to be related to c02 at all. Its sensitivity to forcing.
we just happen to say sensitivity to the change in forcing that doubling c02 brings.
but it could be ANY forcing, radiation is fungible.
1. Paleo records. ( the most important data since the time spans are long enough to see
the full ECR
2. Observational studies: ( quite a number of those)
3. GCMs ( not really the best “evidence”)
basically, If you have minor changes in forcings ( it doesnt matter WHAT causes the excess
watts in, or decreased watts out) and big responses, then you have a sensitive (high gain)
system. And if you have high changes in forcings and small changes, then you have a low
gain system. A warmer MWP could very well be explained by a more sensitive climate.
Now, if a small change in the suns output ( remember we only care about the change in forcing
not the source, watts is watts) drives a big chill… well, then you better be more worried about C02. Thats a more sensitive climate.

What’s all this personal infighting crap?
How did the discussion suddenly get to Maunder minimum II when we don’t even know a repeat of the Dalton minimum is coming? I remember a couple of months ago the chatter was cycle 24 exploded, the difficulties with countering AGW hysteria, simply because there was a spike in SSN and SFI. My point then was, we aren’t looking at 13 month averages, just 30 day averages. I said what goes up will come down. Now I’m saying what goes down will go back up (eventually). Whether we surpass 60 (13 month average) in SC24, we’ll find out. Hysteria doesn’t help. Try to avoid falling into the same trap as the warmistas.
I guess I could be happy being stuck in Lodi for a while, just don’t leave me in Galt.

BenfromMO says:
July 9, 2011 at 5:08 pm
“You can not tell me that the models are correct to within the required parameters to predict even arctic warming…..that is just a coincidence.”
____
Before making such an outrageously wrong statement, I suggest you really get familiar with the complexity of global climate models. Sure they aren’t perfect, but their ability to predict Arctic warming and decreased year-to-year sea ice is hardly a coincidence. I suggest you start here:http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/
And this statement regarding your perception of how you perceive climate scientists think::
““We do not know what is causing the warming, so it must be CO2.”
Display incredible ignorance on how this process works. Really.

wayne Job says:
July 9, 2011 at 5:09 pm
“Human habitation in the last ice age that has recently come to light with a melting of some previous ice covered areas, would tend to suggest that the arctic in an ice age is relatively benign.”
___
What human habitation existed during the “last ice age”? Considering we are still in an ice age, and the last one prior to this one was several million years ago, I doubt there are any signs of human habitation from the previous ice age. Oh, I get it, you are probably confusing ice ages with glacial periods. If that’s the case, please back up your contention that the arctic during the last glacial was relatively benign.

R. Gates tosses out a series of challenges that beg to be met. Inasmuch as R. Gates appears to have as little science background as I do, I’ll undertake to meet his simple challenges.
To begin with, R. Gates challenges skeptics to establish what their response will be if the predicted solar minimum fails to slow “decade to decade” rise in global temperatures. Next: R. Gates tells us that the “larger point” is that global climate models have “accurately predicted” a “decline of Arctic ice and general warming of the Arctic.” Moreover, if the Arctic and its sea ice have not recovered by the end of the solar minima, then climate is not warming because of natural variability, but because of CO2. After all, R. Gates says, CO2 based GCMs have been tested for decades….maybe 30 years or more! Lest we fear that GCMs do not take into account all the possible variables, R. Gates assures us, the models are continuously updated with all “forcing dynamics.” Indeed, R. Gates would head to Las Vegas if GCM, “running vastly different simulations, but using the basic physics of CO2” all indicated AGW! Moreover, CO2 is the thermostatic switch that Milankovitch cycles initiates.
My reply is: If the current solar minima turns out to be merely an unusual solar minima, then we’ve learned something. Hopefully, we’ve recorded all the lows and highs of solar variability and plugged them into our collective knowledge base. Nonetheless, I’m already in “Las Vegas” going long on orange juice futures and short on Canadian grain. I’m also thinking winter clothing is a good investment. Mr. Gates’ “larger point” that GMCs, tested for almost 30 years, “accurately predicted” the “decline of Arctic ice and general warming of the Arctic”; thus, if the Arctic ice doesn’t increase in the near future, then CO2 drives the climate! I’m not at all convinced that the Arctic is warmer and the ice there is less than frozen. Winds and currents appear to have moved the Arctic around a bit, but it still appears to be frozen. What I find interesting is that the Arctic Oscillation—discovered in the 19502—has recently turned largely negative, not to mention the NAO, PDO and ENSO. I personally am interested in seeing what that will do to not only the weather in the next few years, but to the Arctic ice as well. I personally wonder whether the prolonged diminution in solar wind has caused a “collapse” of the polar atmosphere, which in turn has caused a relative high pressure system and a negative AO. Maybe, after 30 years or so of study, R. Gates will add that into a GCM.
Given that GCMs rely on less than half a century of data and “hindcasts,” I find little comfort in R. Gates’ promises that GCMs are updated to include newly discovered “forcings dynamic” on climate and weather. Notwithstanding his assurances, heretofore, his CO2 AGW GCMs appear to marginalize TSI as a constant, which in recent years is shown to be far more variable than previously recognized. Indeed, the more energetic solar spectra vary significantly with the variability of the star.
Moreover, R. Gates is content that he is favored by a benign phase of the Milankovich cycle as well as multiple GCMs, “running vastly different simultaneous programs, but using basic physics of CO2,” so that he will head to Las Vegas at his earliest opportunity to lay down his money on global warming. I’d rather he tell us what he buys on Wall Street, so that we can take the contrarian view in the next few years and see who is the richer for the experience.

steven mosher says (July 9, 2011 at 3:34 pm):
“1. It may well have been warmer in the MWP
2. That means the climate is MORE sensitive than we currently think.”
Heh heh. Coincidentally I just read in an old WUWT article by Steve McIntyrehttp://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/18/steve-mcintyres-iccc09-presentation-with-notes/
that Mosh’s view is shared by none other than the eminent William Connolley, that relentless “corrector” of Wikipedia climate articles. It’s nice to see that level-headed lukewarmers and bat-crap rabid warmers can still find common ground. 🙂
Now someone correct me if I’m wrong, but as I recall the CO2 in ice cores doesn’t vary more than 5-10 ppm in the thousand years before the industrial revolution. So even if the MWP was no warmer than the 21st Century you still calculate a CO2 climate sensitivity waaaaaay higher than the IPCC’s range, which already strains the bounds of credibility (and Mosh is right, if the MWP was even warmer it is indeed “even worse than we thought!!!!!” — that is, if you attribute most warming to CO2).
Hmmm, what to do? I know, let’s get rid of the MWP! But how? Wait! A hockey stick! Yeah, that’s it! For a tiny CO2 variation we get a tiny MWP and a climate sensitivity more or less in line with what we just KNOW is the 20th Century’s temperature response to CO2! Problem solved!
Mann, you just can’t make this stuff up.
Oh wait, they did…

It is hard to believe someone who has so much to say about paleotemperature would ask for evidence that the Arctic was warmer during the MWP (R. Gates says: July 9, 2011 at 1:03 pm). Nevertheless, I would encourage anyone who is in doubt about general cooling of the Arctic (and Antarctic) since 6000 BC, to graph the ice-core concentrations of 2H and 18O over this interval, during which CO2 has increased continuously from 260 ppm. For example, see Figures 4 to 6 of the note linked to my name.

steven mosher says:
July 9, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Actually it does. there are three sources for estimating sensitivity
NOTE: This doesnt have to be related to c02 at all. Its sensitivity to forcing.
we just happen to say sensitivity to the change in forcing that doubling c02 brings.
but it could be ANY forcing, radiation is fungible.
1. Paleo records. ( the most important data since the time spans are long enough to see
the full ECR
2. Observational studies: ( quite a number of those)
3. GCMs ( not really the best “evidence”)
basically, If you have minor changes in forcings ( it doesnt matter WHAT causes the excess
watts in, or decreased watts out) and big responses, then you have a sensitive (high gain)
system. And if you have high changes in forcings and small changes, then you have a low
gain system. A warmer MWP could very well be explained by a more sensitive climate.
Now, if a small change in the suns output ( remember we only care about the change in forcing
not the source, watts is watts) drives a big chill… well, then you better be more worried about C02. Thats a more sensitive climate.
This is what I call simpleton science.
How about MAJOR changes in forcings, in the MWP?

R. Gates says:
July 9, 2011 at 7:00 pm
=======
OK, i’m cherry-picking but you say:
“…I suggest you really get familiar with the complexity of global climate models. Sure they aren’t perfect….”
So, I’m too stupid to understand the complexities of the climate models, which are too stupid to model the climate.
Now what ?

Steven Mosher,
While you’re at the forcings, responses and gains, how do you explain the following:
Global temperature affects atmospheric CO2 (warming causes CO2 to rise and cooling to drop). What is it in the climate system that makes it stable, if CO2 has a warming effect? What are the limiting factors (negative feedbacks)? What shifts the climate from warming to cooling at the maximum CO2 forcing for that previous period of warming? What shifts the climate from cooling to warming at the minimum CO2 forcing for that previous period of cooling? Remember, this happens all the time (probably on all time scales) and it never fails.

DanDaly said:
“I’m not at all convinced that the Arctic is warmer and the ice there is less than frozen. Winds and currents appear to have moved the Arctic around a bit, but it still appears to be frozen.”
____
Ah, the old, “it’s all the wind and currents moving the ice around.” answer eh? If you really believe this, I mean really believe it, then you are beyond educating as there is plenty of evidence and massive data to completely refute this simple-minded explanation, but you would probably reject it all as you don’t want to consider them. There is no need for us to have any more dialog.

R Gates writes “what excuses will the AGW skeptics have if we don’t get their much talked about and anticipated new “LIttle Ice Age”, ”
Excuses? Frankly if AGW is correct and it keeps us out of another “Little Ice Age” then that will be reason enough to rejoice. The LIA lasted for quite a long time. Plenty of time for us to develop alternative energy sources and begin to pull CO2 from the atmosphere if deemed necessary.

R. Gates,
You seem to believe that we have reached a perfect understanding of the types of climate change that are produced by natural causes. You use this mistaken belief to then assume that all of the remaining excess warming we have observed must be due to human emitted CO2 and atmospheric feed backs.
You appear to an intelligent man who is open to reason so I will put forward the following argument. What if you are wrong and we really don’t have a perfect understanding of a rather complex climate system. All it takes is one mistake, one forcing factor that is overlooked or an underestimation of the long term effects of one driving mechanism in order for the AGW house-of-cards to come tumbling down.
As far as I can see, yoru faith in AGW is based on a premise that our “brightest” scientists have got it just right.
My skeptical beliefs are based on a track record that humans often get the science wrong and what they know about nature is more often than not dwarfed by what they don’t know.

And this statement regarding your perception of how you perceive climate scientists think::
““We do not know what is causing the warming, so it must be CO2.”
Display incredible ignorance on how this process works. Really.
————————————————————————————–
Go read the principle of exclusion again. They narrowed out every possible result that WE KNOW of and since CO2 is all that is left, assumed the rest of the warming is CO2. You see, if you knew what I was talking about there and had read about this logical fallacy which was features here on WUWT, you would realize that this mistake happened once before and it happens in science when you assume that we know everything there is to know about say the climate. That is just arrogant beyond extreme to assume like that and likewise: WRONG.
This is a cardinal mistake, and by defending it and futher insulting me for calling climate scientists to task on this is rather put: (Self-censored) –
What I can’t believe is how many parameters they assume are just correct in GCM’s. If Steven Mosher’s description is correct and I was mistaken, just wow. I thought it was common sense to fine-tune parameters based on actual data, not on laboratory physics that have nothing to do with real life. To explain it further, the climate is a chaotic system. This is a given. In a chaotic system, every variable has an effect on every other variable, so changing one variable at one point means you have to fine-tune every other variable over-time, otherwise the chaotic and correct GCM is then nothing more then a linear model approximation of that which you are modeling. In order to predict “tipping points” and other such points in a chaotic system, this absolutly requires changing variables, and not just cloud cover…
I thought the problem with hind-casting was simple incompetentence or bad modeling practices, boy if this is correct, it means the problem is more deep-seated and originates from a lack of understanding of even the fundamental facts of the climate and weather systems. Shame on them for even pretending to be experts…..and for pretending to be chaos scientists working on the frontier. If this is the case, GCM’s are not chaotic models, they are linear models and are no better then weather models…in fact I would say worse since they tell us they can predict the future.
However, I appreciate you explanation S. Mosher, and I give you props. I do think you might be somewhat mistaken on the interaction of variables or maybe factors in a chaotic system. Even if climate sensitivity is higher (which can not even be proven assuming a MWP) then we think, this just means that the variables are more dynamic so to speak. This means that it doesn’t take as large of changes obviously to change the basic premises we think are true..and as such it leads to large changes which in the end are unpredictable. This means we have no clue to what the actual effect of CO2 increasing has on our planet. ZILCH, no idea whatsoever. My guess, your guess, everyone’s guess is just the roll of the die..maybe somewhat educated or maybe not, but its still just a guess since the higher the sensitivity of the climate system, the more likely we can not even begin to model it correctly.
What can we do with what we know: we can predict something large might happen, but then again, another negative feedback could come up, swallow up that effect and leave us with no change too. We could also have a point where a positive feedback (increased CO2) results in temperatures driving downward due to tipping another variable (which we do not understand) and making us colder. This is just a likely as assuming CO2 has a certain forcing based on conditions in a greenhouse…and that this value is stagnant if not larger at all times. Its all a guess like I said…and I think you were making a similar point to me, but I still do not quite understand how they could model this in this method, it just does not make sense for a chaotic system……
To condense somewhat: Most feedbacks in a chaotic system tend to drive the system towards a new stability point. After a series of bad (read maybe extreme) events, the system evens out and a new equilibrium is reached. I know this is important because in the end even if sensitivity is increased, it just means we can not predict the future climate as well as we think we can.
Or maybe our assumptions are wrong in the input parameters and the said interactions. That is a serious problem with GCM’s, and I am sure I am not the first to talk about this, but since cloud cover is still not fixed as an issue, I still wonder why we still talk about GCM’s in any regard?
That small blunder alone sets them out as wrong, and I think real modeling would prove them wrong on just about every variable. At some point, yes they are probably correct given a temperature of 20.1322 C and Rel Hum = 34.213%, but as you vary from that the forcing will change in small steps.
I know this is long, but RGates, no insults. That gets you no where, and by the way, your link was worthless. It told me nothing of value about GCM’s.
If you have more relevant information on how they make GCM’s, feel free to share it, just don’t call me wrong and link me to some site that tells me nothing on how I am wrong.
I am from the State of Missouri, SHOW IT TO ME or stand down soldier. That is all.

RGates says:
Before making such an outrageously wrong statement, I suggest you really get familiar with the complexity of global climate models. Sure they aren’t perfect, but their ability to predict Arctic warming and decreased year-to-year sea ice is hardly a coincidence
———————————
So tell me, since they are so perfect on that score, why is it that they predict a warming arctic? Since you are the resident expert on GCM’s after calling me wrong, why not tell me why it is that GCM’s predict a warming arctic? (lets not even worry about year to year sea ice for now…but if you get part 1 correct, you can answer that as well.)
-Hint I read the literature on this score so to speak. So lets hear it. And remember, there is a reason they predict this. I have never refuted that they do not, but most of the GCM’s do indeed predict this.
I still can’t believe what Steven told me. I just assumed they would model in a logical fashion…that just boggled my mind and puts things into true perspective. I thought all the talks of hind-casting were just poking fun at the parametrization they were using or their incompetence (like we already knew that right?)

steptoe fan says:
July 9, 2011 at 10:48 pm
well, NASA seems to give credit to unusual wind patterns, re arctic ice – although quietly.
but then, R Gates simply won’t let current climate science get in the way of his bulldozer
_____
There is no doubt that the wind moves ice around the Arctic, and wind and current can cause the export of sea ice from the Arctic into the N. Atlantic, mainly through the Fram strait. But “unusual” wind patterns are in no way is the only or even main cause of the real multi-decadal decline in sea ice as we’ve seen warmer temps in the Arctic in both ocean and air. A thinning and fractured ice is far more easy to be pushed around by wind and currents than solid, thick multi-year ice. And two other things to consider:
1) Wind and currents are forms of energy. If CO2 is related to the energy balance of the earth, it would stand to reason we’d see changes in wind and currents in the region supposedly on the leading edge of global warming as CO2 increases. These changes may come about through warming of the ocean and changes in the thermohaline structure as well as changes in the atmospheric temperature gradient from the equator to the the pole which might alter wind patterns.
2) Wind and currents also do not explain the reduction in permafrost across the arctic and sub-arctic regions. I’ve not seen wind being able to blow underground to melt the permafrost nor ocean currents flow into the solid frozen earth and melt the permafrost! This goes back to my main point that higher temps in the region are involved in the reduction of sea ice.

BenfromMO says:
July 9, 2011 at 10:36 pm
RGates says:
Before making such an outrageously wrong statement, I suggest you really get familiar with the complexity of global climate models. Sure they aren’t perfect, but their ability to predict Arctic warming and decreased year-to-year sea ice is hardly a coincidence
———————————
So tell me, since they are so perfect on that score, why is it that they predict a warming arctic? Since you are the resident expert on GCM’s after calling me wrong, why not tell me why it is that GCM’s predict a warming arctic? (lets not even worry about year to year sea ice for now…but if you get part 1 correct, you can answer that as well.
______
I am not the resident expert on GCM’s, but thanks for that. I do understand them well enough though to know that their simulations are far from “dumb luck” when showing certain scenarios. They involve the extremely complicated formulas and some of the most complex models ever created– they are after all, modeling solar, ocean, ice, atmosphere, etc.interactions for an entire planet at increasingly higher and higher resolutions. The super-computers used for running the earth climate simulations (and I’ve seen some of them at NCAR in Boulder, CO) take up entire large rooms. Yes, it is a nice past-time for skeptics to bash these models and claim that the climate is all either a random walk or simply, “the sun did it all” but neither of these explanations has any scientific basis. To your question though, the reason that the Arctic is the area where global warming has been modeled to, and in fact is, warming first and most dramatically with increases in CO2 has to with many factors, including polar amplification, the nature of heating in the tropics versus the polar regions, the difference between the 2 mile thick land based ice at the south pole and the few meter thick sea ice at the north pole, etc. A rather nice, easy to understand summary of all these dynamics can be found here:http://www.digitaluniverse.net/Arctic/articles/view/131804/?topic=8709

Ninderthana says:
July 9, 2011 at 10:21 pm
R. Gates,
You appear to an intelligent man who is open to reason so I will put forward the following argument. What if you are wrong and we really don’t have a perfect understanding of a rather complex climate system.
_______
Our knowledge of the climate system is far from perfect, and I’ve never said in was. In fact, global climate models are constantly being updated and evolving as our knowledge evolves as well. Yes, the climate is complex, but not so complex that we can’t grasp the basics dynamics of it. Do I think we have it exactly perfect? Hardly, otherwise, there’d be no need to research to be on-going. We in fact don’t even know what the majority of the universe is made of. This remarkable fact, related to dark matter and dark energy, and which most people don’t realize makes me a skeptic on many things. There is certainly lots to explore and lots we don’t know about, and hence the reason I love science so much.
But in terms of the basic dynamics of increases in CO2 at the levels we’ve seen over the past few hundred years and it’s relationship to global warming…yes, I think we’ve got most of this modeled pretty well. (at least the linear part, for we may never model the non-linear “tipping points” very well as these are chaotic by nature. Is there still more to learn about solar influences, cosmic rays, high energy UV’s, etc. Certainly, and when we do have these quantified in the same way we can quantify the effects of CO2, then they too will be part of the next generation of climate models.

R. Gates says:
July 9, 2011 at 1:49 pm
“…….I’m still a “skeptic”, but CO2 remains the best explanation for a large part of the warming……
Really don’t mean to “taunt” anyone, BTW.”
R. Gates says:
“July 9, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Ah, the old, “it’s all the wind and currents moving the ice around.” answer eh? If you really believe this, I mean really believe it, then you are beyond educating as there is plenty of evidence and massive data to completely refute this simple-minded explanation, but you would probably reject it all as you don’t want to consider them. There is no need for us to have any more dialog.”
Response – If you really believe, I mean really believe that your 9:31pm arrogant, derisive, dismissively taunting response does not conflict with your 1:49pm statement that you “really don’t mean to taunt anyone”, then you are fundamentally dishonest, as your direct duplicity demonstrates. You. deserve no further respect or tolerance. You are not “25% skeptic”. You are 100% TROLL. Your dismissive statement “There is no need for us to have any more dialog.” is self prophetic. Please stand by that statement. There is no need for anyone to have any more dialog with you.

The above CO2 experts have not demonstrated much knowledge how the real Earth works.
1. TSI output (in W/m2) is relatively constant and makes only tiny difference at the peak of a cycle which is reversed at the next minimum.
2. CO2 contribution is also minimal and its concentration follows the major temperature changes, rather than the other way around.
3. Temperature change is the function of the global oceanic heat content distribution, which is regulated by the ocean currents circulation.
4. It is essential to understand how, why and where the energy is transported and released around the globe; specifically the current warming of the Nordic seas and the Arctic is nothing to do with the current levels of CO2 or TSI; it is to do with energy absorbed in the equatorial regions decades and possibly centuries ago, and the currents’ strength and distribution in the North Atlantic is somewhat different to that of the 1960/70s.
I personally would not trust a doctor who knows nothing about functioning of my cardiovascular system.

low sun spot activity? that may explain why we are freezing out little fingers and toes off here down at the very bottom of Australia currently with snow down to 200M. But don’t worry it will warm up again soon because Julia has advised us the climate is changing!

@Mosh
I was gonna post a reply in response to your post earlier, but it was 1am here and I left it for the morning!
I see a couple of guys have pointed out the error of your simplistic analysis! But for the record, I’ll add my twopenneth…
Firstly – on the reasonable assumption that there was actually an MWP – at that time, major deforestation would hardly have been a problem and neither would have massive anthropogenic CO2 emissions! So, whatever caused the ‘warming’ is highly unlikely to have been CO2 based. I suppose you could argue that it’s possible that the ocean had a ‘hissy fit’ and gave up loads of its stored CO2 or something, if you are desperate to link the event to CO2, but in that case I would argue that how do you know the oceans aren’t doing that today?
Secondly, I don’t believe in the term ‘climate sensitivity’ being solely linked to CO2, which appears to be the general form of presentation, what about all the other ‘links’?. Climate sensitivity is due to the SUM of many many different effects, both positive and negative feedbacks and so on. Nobody knows what, how or why or when all these effects work together or counter each other and our current simple model is clearly inadequate! For a simple ‘proof’, I’ll ask for an explanation of why, allegedly, only 50% of mans current emissions are actually building up in the atmosphere? We don’t actually know, but it is assumed its because the earth is absorbing the other 50% (into so called ‘sinks’, oceans, biomass, etc). Great says I – that means that the MWP is even less likely to have been CO2 based. Because if there was warming but there was no obvious source of excessive CO2, and we know the earth is capable of absorbing a lot of CO2 (it was probably CO2 ‘hungry’, if you like, given all the forests that were around then!) – you cannot thus make a link of CO2 to climate sensitivity at THAT time and ergo, it must far more likely have been something else!
In my opinion, this is one of the prime arguments why the MWP is ‘required’ to be dismissed by the warmista – it kinda kills a ‘highly CO2 sensitive’ climate link, stone dead! As of course, does the 800 year time lag in ice cores, etc, etc.
I defy anyone to show that we know even all the primary climate variables, and then what drives them, the interaction of each of them and moreover, which of them is particularly more important in the overall ‘climate sensitivity’ picture. The whole CO2 issue seems to put CO2 at the top of the list of all the climate ‘drivers’ – but it is manifestly difficult to demonstrate and certainly highly unlikely to be at the very top of the list. Heck, even radiative physics shows that CO2 is only a timy part of the absorptive/reflective radiation spectrum, say compared to water vapour! But yet, water vapour doesn’t seem to be put at the top of the list, and is certainly not advertised by the warmistas as a primary driver!
Personally, I don’t think this scam was set up as a scam, and certainly not on the scale it has become – I think the politicos took it over as an easy way to obtain control and taxes from ordinary folk for their own political agendas. As for the Club of Rome type bulldust, my comment would be – if the governments who want to reduce/control popluation were to introduce a tax for having children, I would find that far more acceptable than taxing carbon/CO2 !!
(I’m not saying this would be acceptable to folk, just that it is more UNDERSTANDABLE and certainly more VERIFIABLE as a realistic ‘plan’ than a tax on CO2/energy!)

If the Sun has something like a Global Climate, it is most definately disrupted.
Just have a quick look at the STEREO AHEAD & BEHIND. One side looks like half of Venus and the other side looks like it has Tiger stripes. It has all the uniformity of a paint ball that ricocheted twice.

From David Archibald’s Update, I’ve been struck by the similarity between Solar Cycles 22,23,24 and Cycles 3,4,5. It occurs to that if the sun was the main driver then the temperatures over the 2 periods should be pretty similar. I checked the last 15 years (1996-2010) of the CET record with the corresponding solar cycle period (1786-1800) in the late 18th/early 19th century. However there seems to be quite a difference.
Mean temp 1786-1800: 9.06 deg
Mean temp 1786-1800: 10.21 deg
The most recent 15 year period (covering SC23 and the start of SC24) is more than 1 deg C warmer than the last 15 years (covering SC4 and the start of SC5) of the 18th century. Remember this is comparing exactly like with like, so lags are not an issue. Also both periods follow strong solar cycles (i.e. SC3 and SC22 respectively).
Actually the mean temperature for the 15 year period following 1786-1800 (i.e. 1801-1815) was 8.97 so the deepening minimum didn’t have that much of an effect anyway. But the real “dagger to the heart” of the solar case is that the mean temperature for the 1771-1785 period (i.e. covering the strong SC3 cycle) is 9.12 deg C – hardly any different at all. It looks like Lockwood and posters such as Vukcevic may be right. Apart from, perhaps, increasing the likelihood of a cold winter, solar activity has very little influence on average temperature.
The 1781-1820 linear trend is a NON-significant -0.04 deg per decade
I’m pretty sure it’s a similar story if you check out other long term records such as Armagh and Uppsala. It’s not just a CET issue.

Lack of warming, no tropical hot spot, warm causes more snow, Met says sun is 50% to blame, and China stopped it all….
…..yep, the global climate models are constantly being upgraded…..
…and they haven’t gotten it right yet, all they have is lame excuses

John Finn.
The average global temperature doesn’t change much because the system response is always negative for any forcing whether towards warming or cooling.
However, regional effects can be large whilst the negative system response is in progress.
So if the dominant source of changes in the global energy budget is solar variability altering the surface pressure distribution from above we will see more poleward jets for an active sun and more equatorward jets for a less active sun with large regional changes but small global changes.
The lack of a large global change in temperature is therefore not a dagger to the heart of the solar case.
Nor is there any problem by virtue of the slightly higher temperature of the system now as against the temperature of the system 200 years ago. That 200 years was part of a 500 year upswing with energy accumulating slowly in the oceans from a more active sun. If we had the data I think you would find that the jets now are more poleward than they were 200 years ago hence climate differences from the climate back then.

“But here’s the larger point: Global Climate models, while far from perfect, have accurately predicted some of the earliest effects of increased CO2, namely the decline of Arctic sea ice and general warming of the Arctic.”
I have a broken watch that tells the exact time twice a day. 700+ times a year it is correct. I have another watch that is working, but never in an entire year has it had the exact time.
The scientific method does not work by counting the number of times a hypothesis is correct. What counts are the failures – what AGW gets wrong. Climate Scientists know this. That is why they have worked so hard to hide their data and methods.

To declare that a climate change has occurred: Climate change comes from and only comes from a sustained weather pattern variation change great enough to change the extreme envelope of whatever climate is being studied, and can be proofed mechanistically and mathematically.
To declare that an anthropogenic climate change has occurred: Anthropogenic climate change comes from and only must come from a sustained weather pattern variation change great enough to negate or worsen natural forcing, is great enough to change the extreme envelop of whatever climate is being studied, and can be proofed mechanistically and mathemmatically. If a natural pattern exists that can explain the change, the null hypothesis must be kept, irregardless of the presence of any anthropogenic existence.
Neither the Sun nor CO2 changes have been shown to be the agent of climate change. First, climates have not changed. Changes in weather pattern variations have not been sustained. And proofs have not been developed.

RGates, so you have no clue on why the GCM’s predict a warming arctic along with a eroding arctic ice pack? This is at least an honest answer, and I do give you props on being honest.
But I can tell you why its the way it is. When you average out grids over 200KM (which is where most climate models are doing today.) You take a very high average that generally assumes “land” or “ocean” depending on a number of guesses. Of course, this is approrpriate in modeling, you can not get infinite accuracy. I did do a little more research on this problem but still can not get much farther then I am since most posts are aimed at scientifically and computer illiterate persons.
But to be clear, when you average out over any distance…and as time goes by this decreases and theoritically the models should get more accurate, but no matter how small you get, you have assumptions here that may or may not work for the Earth. In the case of GCM’s, they assume a certain albedo for arctic environments…and this is worthless…because the angle of the sun and the amount of solar actually absorbed at these extreme latitudes is not enough to make a difference in temperatures anyway…no matter what the albedo..so they miss the boat for the arctic. In addition, this changes a TON over small changes in latitude in the summer as day length can change over hours of time when you travel 200KM. There are tons of things like this that cause issues in GCM’s in arctic and antarctic environments. They just can not really do well in these environments due the vast differences in the grid cells. Smaller grid cells do not fix this problem, this problem is inherent in the GCM paradigm…that in which differences between blocks are assumed to be the same over the entire globe to a certain extent and they do not even get close to attempting to figure out if this is true or not. So albedo factors as I have noted are just a guess for the arctic, because in the end the averaging and the weather pattern forecasting/modeling which work for the most part on the rest of the globe run into the problem of “changes in latitude at the arctic result in larger differences between cells in the arctic.”
So why would they keep these false albedo and other approximations if they are generally that bad? The assumption I can tell you comes from a fudge factor. (not the famous fudge factor mind you, just another..I found 3 new ones last night just looking at various GCM’s that I would call fudge factors but they call them “inspired” in one case…what a laugh.)
But this fudge factor is based on 2 different trains of thought:
The basic premise of AGW is that the arctic warms fastest and temperate regions warm faster then tropics because the solar insolation and heat (energy) trapping effects of CO2 have basically no impact in the arctic especially. This means there is NO DIRECT EFFECT from CO2. This is not something that is argued. Somehow, the arctic has to originally heat. Where does this original heat come from?
In the theory of AGW, it comes from a hot troposphere hot spot which via hadley/ferral cells moves warm air north. The solar insolation is so vastly superior in tropical and temperate zones that the heat can therefore move north at much larger volumes then the pitiful changes in albedo seen at the poles.
But they can not approximate a large transfer of heat in this fashion easilly with GCM’s, so instead of approximating this (which would make the GCM’s vastly more complicated, and which would not match reality today) they fudge this and simply keep the incorrect albedo readings to an extent and keep the generalized average albedo reading for the rest of the globe which result in arctic values which are just plainly: wrong. So yes, its a simple coincidence that these models match reality at all in the arctic. The fudge factors there would make the arctic warm up no matter what world temperatures did, and this is the key you should be looking for above all else. Without an enhanced arctic warming and sea-ice melting, these models are impossibly incorrect and this fudge factor pops up like the monster it is. This is why so many warmists are so strongly jumping up and down about the arctic. If sea ice started going up and the arctic cooled down “Beyond a reasonable doubt” this throws the monkey into their models and they are proven wrong that way. As I said, their fudge factors assume a warming arctic just about no matter what..and if the arctic is not warming, its COOLING by a ton. Just watch as we start to cool naturally and sea ice picks up…it oughta be fun right?
Can I say that I know the answer to these grids in the arctic which are so vastly different then any other grid that represents the planet? No, and I doubt anyone has a simple model with the GCM paradigm. I would submit that GCM’s will never work for modelling the Earth correctly….and this is largely due to the arctic where you would have to use either smaller grids or different metrics of cell interaction. Becomes very complicated very quickly beyond anything we can imagine…
So in essence, roughly 8% of the globe in arctic (antarctic) environments skews the general models…and this 8% is enough to throw this entire region into question, and when talking about such topics as sea ice and temperatures, I don’t think anyone who takes these predictions to the bank really understands how models work and how the basic curvature of the Earth results in such huge problems for modeling the arctic globally. The simple explanation: Its the curvature and low angles of the sun…….that result in huge differences and problems in modeling the grids in the arctic anyway similar to the rest of the globe.
They might get most physics and reactions on this planet right. I don’t know anyone who has found blatant mistakes yet in GCM’s, but they are riddled with fudge factors, incorrect physics (especially in clouds which they have changed around every year for the last 7 years)…and other factors its a shame to be honest. That anyone takes their results for granted and says they match reality when our elementary method of measuring sea ice (maximum extent at the minimum..seriously thats a good metric?) I tried to explain earlier how small mistakes in the physics can lead to huge erroneous results further down the pipeline, but I was called names for pointing that out….
Arctic temperatures (lets just make the same mistake with the measured data that we did with our models (Dr. Hansen) and use cells in our temperature adjustments so that we make the same mistake with the same methodology in measuring arctic temperatures…GISS) And then what happens in GCM’s if sea ice starts an inevitable upward track?
In that case, the GCM’s start showing enhanced arctic cooling like I mentioned earlier…so basically these models are so sensitive (hyper or too sensitive if you ask me) that they are basically worthless and just guessing.
How much is the arctic warming? Well if you measure it with the same technique you used to model it, I am sure both methods will prove to be correct.
But does that match reality? That is the goal of every model on the planet to match reality. Well we shall see I guess. I give the GCM’s .000001% chance of being right. And that chance I base on the God of Dumb luck, so yes R Gates, I do believe these models are nothing but wastes of space and that they come up with arctic warming and sea ice going downwards due to fudge factors that they never decided to fix correctly. So its dumb luck that it matches reality even close to today despite a couple facts which you really need to consider:
GCM’s never predicted the last 15 years almost not showing very little or no warming. Has the arctic been warming during this time period? Well who knows?
But in essence the questions that should be asked when showing lower sea ice is this: (not the ones that have been asked I remind you by warmists..)
Have temperatures correlated with lower sea ice? Is there lag time between minimum sea ice at minimum and temperature?
Is weather an influence on the yearly minimum?
Is this metric even worth showing?

Pamela: irregardless is not a word. But I agree with your point. Global temperatures increased from the 1880s to the 1940s prior to large increases in CO2 emissions. Why is this not regarded as the normal rate of natural forcing? We only need to explain why the world suddenly cooled in the late 1940s through to the 1970s to explain over 130 years of global temperature observations with a simple linear equation. Any AGW effect would be in addition to this natural increase.

What is it with the troll R Gates? Most of his/her arguments are just ad homs and appeals to authority and “my computer is really really big and my equations are very complex so they got to be better than yours” and “none of you know what you are talking about”.
YAWN. I have just about had enough of his/her condescending contributions that unfortunately add nothing that relates to this thread.
/ignore

R. Gates says:
July 9, 2011 at 12:08 pm
“These additions may make some minor differences in future climate scenarios but will not change the overall anticipated major trends such as an ice free summer Arctic, etc.”
Insider knowledge, Mr. Gates? How can you know that? You said yourself that they simulate a “nonlinear” system (but that’s not important, the important part that you left out is that it is a chaotic system). And you know in advance that adding for instance GCR influence will not change whatever the makers of the models anticipate? You know, i am very sure that you are right because the makers of the models have all financial reasons in the world to cling on to their extreme warming prognostications but i thought you pretended they were scientists. Mayve just a slip of the tongue but telling…

R. Gates says:
July 9, 2011 at 11:51 pm
“But in terms of the basic dynamics of increases in CO2 at the levels we’ve seen over the past few hundred years and it’s relationship to global warming…yes, I think we’ve got most of this modeled pretty well. (at least the linear part, for we may never model the non-linear “tipping points” very well as these are chaotic by nature.”
The old “we got the basic physics right” Realclimate canard, and then followed by an admission that we unfortunately can only guess the dynamics. R. Gates, by that argument i could say that each time it rains the Earth gets wet, so we’ll all necessarily drown (we still have to figure out what happens between rainfalls but we have the basic physics right).

@Pamela Gray
Agreed! No matter what the warmists say, there is no real detectable signal of anthropogenic origin above and beyond what we can recognize as the natural climate variation. There always remains a possibility of some anthropogenic signal (thought to be due to CO2 or whatever) but it is nowehere near demonstrable from observations (further meaning that any such signal MUST be small!). Worse still, thus far, there is no evidence of ‘out of the ordinary’ climate i.e. of all the so called AGW caused ‘current’ events, equally similar or worse events have been ‘witnessed’ in the past!
That’s my view – and no amount of MSM or alarmist hype will convince me otherwise!

Pamela Gray says:
July 10, 2011 at 7:35 am
——
Pamela,
I thank you for your dispassionate and clear statement on climate change determination criteria.
I concur generally.
I suggest, that in addition, there needs more real earth system evaluation (not by models) of the ‘radiative physics’ which some say causes statistically significant (wrt natural variation) permanent warming by the (unfortunately named) greenhouse CO2 gas. It is not sufficient to say ‘all things being equal’ that additional CO2 simply yields either significant transient or permanent warming when statistically compared to natural variation.
John

Pamela Gray says: July 10, 2011 at 7:35 am
…………….
In England temperature is the main controlled by the Atlantic currents. However in the month of June, when the insolation is at its highest and generally overrides the effect of the surrounding seas, ground level temperature should show a rising trend due to combination of both the anthropogenic and solar forcing.
There is no rising (or any) trend for the 350 years of the available data.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CETjun.htm

From 1910 to 1945 there was 0.45 degrees of warming.
From 1945 to 1975 there was no warming or cooling.
From 1975 to 2000 there was 0.50 degrees of warming.
Rate of warming (natural) from 1910-1945 was 1.28 Deg/Century.
Rate of warming (natural + AGW) from 1975 to 2000 was 2.00 Deg/Century.
Difference is (2.00-1.28) 0.71 Deg/Century.
Subtract a 30 year period of no warming and we should expect 0.50 Deg/Century.
However, if we believe that warmer temperatures lead to CO2 increases which in turn lead to higher temperatures, then we have to back out the effect of the natural warming adding more CO2 and then leading to more warming. I don’t know how to do that, but this drops the 0.50 Deg/Century down even further.
I am not a climate scientist and I am not worrying about the climate. Now taxes? That is something to worry about.

R Gates,
“IF we should go into a Maunder type minimum, what excuses will the AGW skeptics have if we don’t get their much talked about and anticipated new “LIttle Ice Age”, but rather, on a decade to decade basis, global temps continue to rise.”
Then the sceptics will also have been proven right about the scamming of the temperature record!!
8>)

John Finn says:
July 10, 2011 at 3:38 am
Should be done as a relative drop, not an absolute drop.
If you have 2 baloons that leak 2 cfm, one holds 200 cfm and the other holds 400 cfm, which one will leak air faster? Your analysis assumes that if SC 3,4 & 5 absolute temps do not match SC 22, 23 & 24 absolute temps, then solar influence is falsified. There are even more problems than that, as we don’t have measured Neutron counts, data on UV output and all the other things we just started measuring for SC 3, 4 & 5.

Steven Mosher,
“Now, if a small change in the suns output ( remember we only care about the change in forcing
not the source, watts is watts) drives a big chill… well, then you better be more worried about C02. Thats a more sensitive climate.”
Actually that is exactly what part of the argument is about. Watts is NOT Watts. (sorry Anthony)
If the amount of energy is the same but the frequencies delivering that energy changes, the effect on the earth can change. You know this.
We have seen that there is some validity to the high energy cosmic ray theory of Svensmark. Again, this will cause extra cooling for the same change in Watts.
Then there is the change in the direct effects on the magnetic field and upper atmosphere by the charged particles of the solar wind and the sun’s decreased magnetic field.
These and possibly other effects are there in the net measurements, but, not attributed correctly.
So, the deflection is NOT only a direct influence of Watts (or TSI) and we probably don’t have to worry about a glaciation starting anytime soon.

R. Gates,
“IF we should go into a Maunder type minimum, what excuses will the AGW skeptics have if we don’t get their much talked about and anticipated new “LIttle Ice Age”, but rather, on a decade to decade basis, global temps continue to rise.”
No excuse needed. It will be validation of one of the sceptics other claims. That the temperature record has been gamed. 8>)

From the projected Linear Trend Department:
Hear ye, hear ye: All trends are hereby etched in stone. All areas getting warmer will fry like egss. All areas getting colder will enter a cyrogenic state. All areas getting wetter will wash away or become inundated. All areas getting drier will turn to a pile of sand & rocks.
The Earth will continue to move towards the Sun indefinately, since we have passed aphelion, until it burns to a crisp, until awoken by Mrs Bronson, where the Earth moves relentlessly away from the Sun.
Don’t you just love linear trends without end, amen? /sarc

Jeremy not quite literally quoting R. Gates: “my computer is really really big and my equations are very complex so they got to be better than yours”. The problem is that the models still don’t resolve weather to the level of detail needed to predict water vapor feedback. Sensitivity is unknowable by models.
Mosh: your logic seems to be that sensitivity is a constant and a simple multiple of a few simple forcings. Other people have pointed out some of the flaws in that logic, but here is another. Sensitivity depends on the weather and weather depends on many things but mostly on various solar factors (e.g. GCR, solar UV, etc). The MWP could have easily been warmer because sensitivity was higher and a small change in TSI was multiplied more than the current less small change in CO2 forcing. IOW, if the current blocking, negative AO, etc keep going the way they are going, there will be a lot less positive feedback to CO2 warming and perhaps even negative feedback. That doesn’t mean we will cool, but warming could effective stay suppressed.

Eric ,
No I’m not saying that. Have a look at the work Paul K and SteveF did at Lucia’s. Especially SteveFs. The point is this. When we talk about sensitivity to doubling C02 here is what we mean.
doubling c02 gives you a certain increase in forcing (3.71wsqm ). That increasing in forcing get’s amplified ( so the theory goes) based on the sensitivity or gain in the system.
read SteveF and you will begin to understandhttp://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/a-simple-analysis-of-equilibrium-climate-sensitivity/

Jimbo.
More sensitive to forcing. Read the essay by SteveF. here is the point. A doubling of c02 creates and addition forcing of 3.71W per sq meter. the question is what’s the temperature reponse
to a forcing of 3.7Watts. If does not matter whether those excess watts are created by by methane or water vapor or increased solar forcing. What is the response. SteveF gives you
a first order estimate of that response assuming NO feedbacks. That figure, 1.56C is the temperature RESPONSE for the given forcing. that is for every extra watt of forcing, the temperature goes up by .406C. it doesnt matter where that excess watt comes from. it’s
like this. You put x watts in, how much C to you get out? source of the watts is immaterial.
With no feedbacks then we can estimate that doubling co2 gives you ~1.5C of warming. Absent
feedbacks. Now, where does the 3.71 watts per doubling come from? That comes from
emprically verified radiation theory. The same theory we use to design ir missiles and sensors
in satillites. Increase C02 and you get a change in forcing. about 3.7watts per doubling.
What does 3.7 watts get you? ~1.5C. Thats the sensitivity WITHOUT feedbacks.
So if the sun is the ONLY THING that drives the MWP, then you’ve just said that small changes in
in the suns output(watts) makes big changes in C. ( the climate is sensitive to small changes)
To recap. Changes in watts produce changes in temperatures. SteveF has a nice little estimate that says a change of one watt ( any source) gives you an increase of .4C. That’s the response.
Looking at c02 with Radiation transfer codes we can say doubling c02 gives us 3.7 extra
watts. 3.71 *.4 gives you 1.5C per doubling.. thats the sensitivity to doubling.
IF co2 gave you 1 excess watt per doubling, then the sensitivity would be .4
The final question, the most important question is the feedback question.
Are there feedbacks positive or negative that drive the sensitivity higher.
in any case one shouldn’t think that a warmer MWP makes the skeptic case stronger. It doesnt.
not in any clear fashion.

rbateman said: “Agree except for the “it gets warmer” part. With the sun out of the picture during the Polar Winter, the heat in the refrigerator is just like the leaking O2 aboard Apollo 13….it escapes to space. We certainly have extended winters and springs as collateral data, as well as cold fronts getting much further towards the equator. The next step is to be able to establish proof that the Sun is responsible.”
—————————————————
The sun is out of the picture and the energy escapes into space, BUT your starting temp is higher, therefore your ending temp is higher or else ‘bottoms out’ in a longer timeframe, meaning that during that time temps were warmer than they would otherwise be. Moreover, during that timeframe, warmer air is continuously being drawn into the polar regions as the jet stream continues to drag polar air south. No matter how you slice and dice it, the polar regions will be warmer.

Jimbo.
Was the MWP global?
Well first you need to define the terms. What do we mean by MWP? warmer than what?
warmer than the LIA? sure it was warmer. warmer than today? hmm, not so certain.
warmer GLOBALLY? hmm thats also tough.
This is a funny question. Lets look at one of your sources;
“To analyze the geographical pattern of temperatures depicted by the proxies, all centennial indices within a 1,500 km great circle distance, centered on each proxy site, are averaged. The statistical robustness of the averages within each search radius is also assessed. ”
You know, i love it when people who criticize hansen for averaging over 1200km point to paleo sources that average over greater distances. Basically what people like this are doing is this.
1. I dont believe a global record is accurate when 7000 thermometers are averaged over 1200km
2. I do believe a global record when 150 proxies are averaged over 1500km or more.
So, You see, I get to be consistent here. Since we know that we only need a 150 well placed thermometers to capture a global trend, I can say that 150 well spaced proxies should be enough ( if they are well placed). you see I have no logical problem here arguing that it may have been global.
the people who have a logical problem are those who say 7000 thermometers with a small fraction averaged over 1200km is not enough.
So, the question is really to you:
1. do you believe 150 proxies ( or thermometers) is enough?
2. is 1500km averaging good enough?
Dont complain to me, you sited the source, so I assume you read it.

jtom says:
July 10, 2011 at 6:07 pm
You misunderstood, my bad. The Sun is only out of the picture for warming the Arctic during Winter.
The question should be: Do we have solid evidence that the Sun is responsible for shoving the Jet Streams toward the Equator?

steven mosher says (July 10, 2011 at 6:20 pm):
“1. do you believe 150 proxies ( or thermometers) is enough?
2. is 1500km averaging good enough?”
If I understand Steve correctly here, he’s saying the evidence for a MWP cooler than or the same as today is more complete/reliable/extensive than the evidence for a warmer MWP. RIght?

Jimbo says:
July 10, 2011 at 5:23 pm
R. Gates,
The “Maunder type minimum” occured during the Little Ice Age, it did not cause the LIA.
______
How can you be so sure that solar influences didn’t play a causal role in the LIA? Not perhaps the only role, as we know there were volcanic eruptions, but a causal role at some level It seems that even the much beloved Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt have come to this conclusion (no doubt much to the surprise of many AGW skeptics, who fail to grasp the bigger issues). In a 2001 paper (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/294/5549/2149.full.pdf) they wrote:
“These results provide evidence that relatively
small solar forcing may play a significant
role in century-scale NH winter climate
change. This suggests that colder winter temperatures
over the NH continents during portions
of the 15th through the 17th centuries
(sometimes called the Little Ice Age) and
warmer temperatures during the 12th through
14th centuries (the putative Medieval Warm
Period) may have been influenced by longterm
solar variations.”
Does this surprise some skeptics? I suppose it would if they’d not done their research to understand that solar influences have never been excluded from having an effect on earth’s climate by all climate scientists. The real issue is the point at which anthropogenic factors overwhelm the natural sources of variability such as the sun and even Milankovitch cycles.

rbateman says:
July 10, 2011 at 8:10 pm
jtom says:
July 10, 2011 at 6:07 pm
You misunderstood, my bad. The Sun is only out of the picture for warming the Arctic during Winter.
The question should be: Do we have solid evidence that the Sun is responsible for shoving the Jet Streams toward the Equator?
____
Of course such evidence would be hard to come by but plenty of plausible mechanisms in the effects of high energy UV on stratospheric ozone and the jet stream. This is one excellent source of investigation:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682604001798
And of course, high energy UV have a great deal more variability during the course of a solar cycle than other parts of the solar output spectrum.

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the claim that a warmer MWP means a higher “climate sensitivity” (CS) that supports the CAGW agenda. The SteveF reference helped (thanks, Mosh!), and I understand that for a forcing of known magnitude, the greater the net temperature response the greater the CS.
But for the claim about the MWP to be true,
1. Don’t we have to know the magnitude of all the forcings for the MWP?
2. If so, do we?
BTW, I’m awfully skeptical about calculating CS from history/prehistory, given the uncertainties in temperature and “forcings” reconstructions, but if the alarmists are pushing this point…

Stephen Wilde says:
July 10, 2011 at 6:38 am
John Finn.
The average global temperature doesn’t change much because the system response is always negative for any forcing whether towards warming or cooling.
I’m not sure how you explain the glacial/interglacial periods then.

John Finn asked:
“I’m not sure how you explain the glacial/interglacial periods then.”
The solar insolation changes from glacial to interglacial epochs are much larger than those seen during an interglacial and so are sufficient to establish a new equilibrium temperature despite the negative system response.That equilibrium temperature is always a function of solar shortwave input to the oceans, atmospheric pressure and the latent heat of vaporisation. However internal ocean cycles will influence the timing of the shift between glaciations and interglacials.
The negative system responses are only able to eliminate/minimise forcing influences other than long term net changes in solar shortwave input to the oceans or changes in atmospheric pressure. The latent heat of vaporisation is always a constant for a specific atmospheric pressure.

Steve Mosher linked to http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/a-simple-analysis-of-equilibrium-climate-sensitivity/
Steve, that post SteveF points out a few weaknesses in his approach. However he leaves out the biggest one of all which is that sensitivity depends almost completely on the distribution of water vapor. If water vapor is evenly distributed, then sensitivity will be high. If not it will be low (as low as negative feedback to warming). You are SteveF and many other people are hung up on the radiation is fungible concept. It is, but it is irrelevant. The radiative forcing of GHGs as a whole depends on what happens with water vapor.

Mosh, that’s a nice link up above, but unfortunately comments are closed. Here’s one problem, in the thread KAP says “In other words, storms and rainfall are more intense when they happen,
but not necessarily more frequent.” The first statement is supported, the second is not. The reason KAP throws in that unsupported disclaimed is because s/he knows that a world with more frequent (intense or not) precipitation events is a world with negative feedback to CO2 warming. The deciding factor is not “clouds feedback”, KAP’s (and other people’s) red herring. It is the distribution of water vapor. If water vapor is spread out evenly, then that will provide a lot of additional warming over the CO2 warming. If not, it won’t.

But here’s the larger point: Global Climate models, while far from perfect, have accurately predicted some of the earliest effects of increased CO2, namely the decline of Arctic sea ice and general warming of the Arctic.
—
GCM’s haven’t accurately predicted anything.

Not sure if this has been mentioned.
But I believe that current science does not actually know if the Earth itself is a net heatsink or heat source.
Given the occurence and reality of activty volcanic and other geothermal activity ‘beneath the waves’ of oceans worldwide there might be reason to consider their collective impact on ‘climate’.
Do such volcanoes impact Artic ocean ice, how about general ocean heat? Do we have any appreciable history that reflects this activity (of course not, even with current science it is not possible, especially considering the vastness of all sub-ocean volcano activity – we have no ability to monitor it in any manner beyond one vent here and there).
Just another forcing that I am sure GCMs cannot fully comprehend.

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